Pashnit Photography at the IMS Motorcycle Show- Thanks to all

What a show. Even emotionally overwhelming. I think in a sense I got to come face to face with the average everyday joe that uses the site that I've created. And they came by in droves. Sometimes 10-15 deep waiting, just standing in line, to shake my hand. That was amazing. At times, I joked I was going to set up turnstiles and we'd line them all up like a wedding party and I'd get to shake everyones hand one at a atime to make sure i hit everyone.

Special thanks to everyone that stopped by, and all the new folks I got to talk to and excitedly share about the explosive growth of the Pashnit Forum, the 400gigs of bandwidth I'm pushing, all the new projects we're working on behind the scenes, the California Motorcycle Roads site and of course being able to spend a few moments with riders to talk about the excitement of the Pashnit Tours- introducing folks to this motorcycling paradise we live in. Tim, Shawn & I had a great time- a whirlwind really.

Joe's video which you can download here was a huge hit. People stood and watched the entire 12 minutes start to finish, other times they watched 4-5 deep. Kudos to Joe for listening to my vision of what a short film of our tours could be like and being able to translate that into a workable vid. Great job- it was the surprise hit the show. It played non-stop for all three days of the show.

And this wouldn't be Pashnit if we didn't have some pics. I barely left the booth the entire weekend, too busy, but I did get a chance to quickly walk around the show before it opened to the public.

Our booth right before the show opened up. The laptops were set up so you could surf the Pashnit Tours site or the CA Moto Roads site.

The stunt guys practicing b/f everyone got there

I have long been fascinated by Ural's and finally got a chance to photograph several. The camo one is my favorite!

The new ZX-14 by Kawasaki was um, interesting. I suppose it's going to be one of those bikes you either love or hate the looks of.

Ah the Busa. Gotta spend some time over here.

Little GSXR 1000

Then there was that new VRod. Awesome!

And the Victory bikes were all decked out. So custom!

Then there was the Ducati's. Can't help but fall in love.

Some of the more interesting bikes were by Arlen Ness, who showed up for a short time on Saturday to sign autographs.

One of the rocked out R1's from Gregg's Customs - very trick!

That's all folks - could have shot hundreds of pics, but too many hands to shake!! Thanks to everyone who stopped by our booth!! It was a pleasure meeting those of you from the forum that swung by! And all the lurkers that are registered here that don't post (there were tons!!!) very often, what a pleasure it was to meet face to face!

Re: Pashnit Photography at the Motorcycle Show- Thanks to all

As always Tim, excellent photograghs. In fact you should send the white Busa ones to Suzuki. They are a 1000 times better than the ones they used on thier own website! From thier website, I wouldn't look twice at the white Busa, yours make me want to go buy one now!

Re: Pashnit Photography at the Motorcycle Show- Thanks to all

Tim, congradulations! Pashnit strikes deep at a core reason why many really ride motorcycles. We are propelled into a world of serenity, exploring a world around us that awaits to reveal itself to us, it's as if it pulls us into a relationship with itself, one of harmony, and I believe that's the way the one who created it intended it to be.

There is an intense feeling as we ride into the wind that for this moment in time all else ceases to exist, and we are at peace for that period of time with ourselves and everything around us. So thanks Tim for picturing the essence of why I ride on film, in narrative, and thanks for the effort you put forth that has attracted so many great people of like mind to this site that is the Disneyland of my world. -Max

Re: Pashnit Photography at the Motorcycle Show- Thanks to all

Tim - it was great to see you at the show and have a brief opportunity to visit with you again. I think you have who is thanking who reversed though, as it was really our chance to THANK YOU for your extremely significant contributions to our motorcycle experiences over many great seasons of touring California's fantastic roads. I can't even begin to tell you or measure the impact you've had on my motorcycling travels and even more significantly what I have planned for the seasons to come. You have made a major difference for the positive for us Tim, and in my view and measure of a person, it just doesn't get much better than that.

Thanks for all your extensive work and efforts and sharing to make our motorcycling experiences something we all treasure and enjoy.

Re: Pashnit Photography at the Motorcycle Show- Thanks to all

Thanks for the custom tour of the show, Tim! Great to hear the Pashnit booth was so popular. As Dale has said, it's no surprise that so many folks came to shake your hand and offer thanks for your work over the years.

Were you offering sign-ups for the 2006 touring season? Do you expect you'll see some business coming from the IMS?

Re: Pashnit Photography at the Motorcycle Show- Thanks to all

Originally Posted by Gary

Thanks for the custom tour of the show, Tim! Great to hear the Pashnit booth was so popular. As Dale has said, it's no surprise that so many folks came to shake your hand and offer thanks for your work over the years.

Were you offering sign-ups for the 2006 touring season? Do you expect you'll see some business coming from the IMS?

That was actually one of my original ideas- I even brought 4 laptops just for that purpose. But in practice, didn't really work, the show was so busy-busy, the booth was mobbed at peak times (one guy told me he came by 4 times, finally the 4th time he just interrupted the fella I was chatting with ), and the PMT site has like 70+ pages of text- but it was handy to have to show folks that were interested in the rides and just break it down - NorCal, Central Cal & Sierra Nevada- and be able to introduce them to the tour site and encourage them to log on and poke around awhile.

We also had a laptop running the CA Moto Roads site, and that was just as popular. It was really convienent to have since everytime people did one of those - 'have you ever heard of...', I'd simply take them to the webpage for the road. We also had paper maps too, and couple times I pulled those out and we looked up roads together- one in particular on the east side of Clear Lake, I'm going to have to go check out- Sulphur Bank Rd. No one's ever sent me info on this one.

It was also amazing to meet people who may have sent me something like 2-3 years ago that I've added to the CA Moto Roads pages, pictures, text, even entire webpages written by others. Bunch of those stopped by to recall email conversations from several years past.

Another interesting tid-bit is I was reading the latest copy of Rider Magazine on Saturday morning before the show about the rider's trip through NorCal, and sure enough the pashnit.com site is mentioned in this month's mag.

A few hours later a fella walked up, and I read his name tag, "Somehow, I know you" I said. It was the author of the article I'd read only a few hours earlier stopping by to say thanks - he'd planned the entire ride off the pashnit site. Steve Larsen I believe his name was who write mainly for MCN. (Motorcycle Consumer News)

There were a bunch of famous people there- I got to meet Brett Saunders who got me on a live interview on Cycle Talk Radio 3 yrs ago & put Tim & I together on the Pashnit Tours project. Plus Bob Stokard who swung by who wrote the article about our October ride in City Bike Magazine. Plus a lot of the tour particpants from past rides stopped by including Frank who went on 3 tours this year with me. Doc Wong stopped by. Kim Leung who runs CA Sport Touring. Amy Holland who runs Friction Zone Magazine who I've written for over the years occaisionally. Arlen Ness was a few feet away from us (who you can see in Steve's pics). I got an autographed poster from Wayne Rainey, and Tim & I even got to meet Gary Eagan too.

Re: Pashnit Photography at the Motorcycle Show- Thanks to all

It was a pleasure to me to meet you, Tim, and offer my thanks and congratulations on your fine work.
Pashnit.com is not only a great reference for riding California roads. Great writing and photography make it a very entertaining and educational work on the history and lore of some of the most beautiful riding areas of the country.
Thanks again.